The Festival of Flanders made clear on Monday evening why it chose ›stars‹ as its theme for this year.
In the Boekentoren (Ghent University Library Reading Room) the Spectra Ensemble gave a special concert, that was utterly ›celestial‹. With the chairs arranged in a spiral (like a revolving star), the listeners enjoyed what emerged from the 200 speakers placed around them. A marvellous event, which aroused astonishment and amazement, and conjured up a complete wall of sound.‹ ›As we have said: a marvellous event, which cannot be described as either beautiful or not beautiful. That is actually not the important thing either. It is a fantastic sound experiment (-). Whoever experienced it will remember it for a long time – a unique piece of music.‹

On my desk lies One Noon for six spatially-positioned percussionists. I still have to write about 5 minutes of music to complete the score. However, I have interrupted this work for composing Genieting V for accordion, creating a new ›Genieting‹ that may be added to the series of solo pieces under that title.

Genieting V was commissioned by the accordionist Vincent van Amsterdam, whom I met at the rehearsals and performances of The Hours 7-11, as one of the musicians of f.c. jongbloed.

Solo works, by and large, emphasize the player’s technical mastery of the instrument and challenge the limits of the achievable. In the series of solo works under the title ›Genieting‹ this aspect is characterized by the duality of the performer who takes control of the physical characteristics of his instrument but at the same time is submerged in them: an elementary world that also remains strange and ›foreign‹ for the player as well as the listener.